


For All My Dreams and Burdens

by bluelinerush27



Category: Mighty Ducks (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1849309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelinerush27/pseuds/bluelinerush27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is too much noise around him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For All My Dreams and Burdens

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> On that note, this hit me last night and wouldn't go away till I finished it, so here we go. 
> 
> Have at it.

He doesn't pay attention to the scouting reports. 

It's probably something that he ought to do, but he's just stubborn enough to convince himself that he doesn't really give a damn where he goes, as long as he goes somewhere. That he doesn't care whether he's drafted in the first round or not, like everyone says he'll be. 

They've been talking for years. It was okay, before he got old enough to figure out that most of the time, he was only the sum of his triumphs; the result of his failures. 

And yet, here he is. 

There is too much noise around him. 

*********  
The thing about being a highly-touted prospect is that everyone wants you, but nobody really knows why. 

They talk of stats; of how many games played in a season, how many goals, how many assists. They want to know what position you play, if you can be adjusted to fit somewhere else. Whether or not you're capable of proper defense, or if you do actually know how to put pucks in the net on a regular basis. 

What they want is for you to be the answer to a long-standing question. 

Can we win? 

Adam supposes he ought to be used to this by now. 

The draft is in Buffalo this year, and he'd balked at going. Had briefly considered putting his foot down and insisting that he didn't want the sideshow; the cameras in his face, the endless barrage of questions he knows will come not long after his name is called, if he even hears it. He does not want to stand there and say that he is happy to be here.

His father tells him that he is an ungrateful piece of work. 

There's not any sign of that here, though. The night before the draft, his parents meet up with old friends and leave him to his own devices in a hotel room. They tell him as they leave not to wait up for them, that they don't know when they'll be back, and also that he ought not to stay up too late; after all, they have places to be in the morning. 

"More like people to impress," Adam says. "I should stay up all night and show up looking like I got bit by a zombie." 

He rolls onto his back and scowls up at the ceiling. "I don't want to be here," he says. 

"News to me," says Charlie. Adam can almost see him smirking. "Connie says to tell you that you looked like a dork yesterday, by the way." 

Adam snorts. "I bet she did." 

"No, really. You kinda did." 

"Don't remind me." 

It really sucks, Adam thinks, not having any of the others here. He'd left Eden Hall to go play juniors, convinced back then that it was the best thing to do. Hasn't seen much of anyone since, too busy with regular seasons and playoffs; hardly any room to breathe before he was back at it again. The same routine, over and again. 

Some things never change. 

"Why'd you call?" Charlie asks. 

"Maybe I felt like running up the hotel bill," Adam says. "I don't know. My parents took off to have dinner with some friends." 

"You didn't go with them?" 

"I wasn't exactly invited. Whatever. Like I wanted to sit around watching people drink while they talk about how much their lives suck." 

Charlie laughs. "Guess you wouldn't." 

Adam huffs out a sigh, still staring up at the ceiling. "Can I ask you something?" 

"You just did." 

"Cute. I'm serious." 

"So am I. What do you want?" 

Trick question, Adam thinks. He doesn't know what he wants. Up until now, playing in the big league had been a dream, but now the reality of it is coming at him in a rush, and he isn't so sure he wants to move forward. It'd be a waste if he didn't, he knows; a waste of talent, time and money, of himself. He has played this game ever since he was old enough to find himself stuck on a team with skates on his feet and a stick in hand. It hadn't mattered then that he had no idea what he was doing. He could learn.  
Now, he is supposed to know everything. 

Now, he is supposed to make it work. 

"When you quit the team," Adam says, after a while. "At Eden Hall. When you quit. What were you thinking when you did it?" 

"That Coach Orion was an asshole," Charlie says. "Why?" 

"No, I mean, besides that," says Adam. "Did you think you'd be able to stick with it for very long?" 

The silence he gets is an answer without being one. Probably not. He can almost hear Charlie saying it, even though he doesn't. Probably not. Back then, the idea of living without hockey had been near to unbearable. Adam still remembers how it'd felt to be told he couldn't play if he didn't switch teams because the boundaries had been redrawn and somehow, that little fact had been overlooked. 

Some days, he wonders whether or not it'd been on purpose. The Hawks had been everything then; the winning team, the ticket to getting people to notice him. 

Only thing was, he thinks now, being noticed was never the problem. 

"Not really," Charlie says finally. "I mean, at first, yeah. I was done. But then it was like, what am I doing? Am I really gonna let it all go just because I was mad for ten seconds?" 

"I think it was longer than ten seconds." 

"Shut up, Adam. You know what I mean."

"Yeah." 

"You don't really want to be there, do you?" 

"No." 

It's an easier thing to admit than he'd thought it would be. It's also kind of a lie. The part of him that would be content to stay unnoticed has long since been outweighed by the one that says this is what you will do because it will make everyone happy. It is what you will live with, because it is what you have worked for your entire life, and you will not throw it away. 

How easy it would be, Adam thinks, to turn and walk away. 

He's thought about it. More than once. But the funny thing about it is that even as much as he wishes nobody cared who he was, he's known for a while that the inevitable would happen. He would be here, or wherever the draft happened to be, waiting to hear his name. Hoping he would, but hoping at the same time, that he wouldn't. 

What a kick in the pants that would be, he thinks. 

"What would you be doing if you weren't there?" Charlie asks. 

Adam jumps, startled. He'd forgotten for a moment that he was even on the phone, but all of his thoughts come rushing back to the present now and he sighs. 

"No idea," he says. "It's just...it's always been the game, you know? There wasn't anything else. I mean, there was, but...not like this." 

"So you want it, but you don't want it," says Charlie. He makes a 'hm' sound that sort of makes Adam want to punch him. "Interesting place to be in." 

"Oh, shut up," Adam says. "It's not interesting. It's a pain in the ass. I'm supposed to be this...this answer and I don't even know what the question is." 

"Yeah, you do," Charlie tells him. "You just don't want to think about it." 

And that, right there, Adam knows, is why he'd called. To hear the voice of someone who wasn't biased one way or the other (except for the occasional name-calling; he still hasn't forgotten the 'cake eater' days); to know that he isn't the only one who'd ever had doubts about where his life was going. 

But that's just the thing, he wants to say, and can't do it. I'm not supposed to have any doubts. I'm already supposed to know.  
He figures this is what he gets for being the youngest son. Expected to either forge his own path (which he's done) or follow in somebody else's footsteps. 

"I love the game," he says. "I do. I've wanted this for as long as I can remember, Charlie, for God's sake, I don't know anything else." 

"Did you ever want to?" 

"I don't know." 

"That's a little weird, dude." 

"No kidding." 

It is what it is, all the same. The choices he's made have led him here, however much those choices might have been influenced by others. His own love of the game, his father's apparent obsession with living vicariously through his children. The fact that he's put so much of himself into it that turning back now is an unthinkable thing. 

Impossible. 

He cannot let go of what has turned the eyes of the world in his direction, but he cannot stand the thought of being in the spotlight. 

"I wanted to come home," Adam says finally. "After this past season. I wanted to come home, but my parents, y'know, they just came on up and dragged me off on vacation." 

"Didn't you tell them you wanted to come home?" Charlie asks. 

"Yeah," says Adam. "Lot of good that did. They said something about wanting me to relax before the draft, like it makes a difference." 

"Did it help?" 

"No. I hardly spend any time at home as it is, and after this? You think they're gonna bring me back with them?" 

"You don't think they will?" 

"No. They're gonna ship me off like they usually do, so I can keep up with training. They probably think I'll spend all my time slacking off if I do come home." 

"I see." 

"It's not like that." 

But even as Adam says it, he knows it is. Nobody in his family had been happy about the redrawn boundaries, about the fact that he'd been shunted off to the worst team in the little hometown league they'd played in. To this day, he's pretty sure that his parents still disapprove highly of the rest of the Ducks, for all he insists to his old friends' faces that it couldn't be further from the truth. 

"So what are you going to do?" Charlie asks. It's a deliberate change in subject, and Adam can't help being grateful for it. 

"You know what really gets me?" he asks in reply, and before Charlie can answer, he goes on. "Everyone used to think I was in it for the attention." 

"Weren't you?" Charlie says dryly. 

Adam snorts. "Hardly," he says. "It looked that way, but I think most of the time, I would've been happier if nobody had seen me at all." 

"And now you're probably gonna be a first-round pick." Charlie trails off for a moment and Adam thinks about turning the television on, but he can't remember what he did with the remote. "You know, you're the only one of us who made it all the way."

Adam nods to himself. "Yeah." He swallows past the sudden lump in his throat, the sudden wave of being homesick. "I wish you guys were here." 

"Aw, do you miss us?" Charlie says. Adam can just see him grinning like an idiot at the phone, clearly teasing, but somehow not at the same time. 

"Maybe," he says. "Yeah. I do." 

Charlie laughs. "We'll throw you a party when you come back." 

Adam smiles a little at this, in spite of himself. "I'll be there."  
*********

The stands at the Marine Midland Arena are somehow a cold and lonely place, even though he is not alone. 

His parents are both there, on either side of him and clearly proud to be. His brothers aren't there, but Adam doesn't have any doubt they'll be among the first to know what happens. And it'll spread from there; from his parents to his siblings, to extended family and then to friends. To people he hasn't seen, thought of or spoken to in years; people he doesn't think he cares about but will be expected to make nice with. 

If he goes home. 

He still hopes there's a chance that he will. Just for a little while. Long enough to catch his breath. 

He hasn't paid attention to the scouting reports. Doesn't know where he is projected to go, only that he will. 

Only that someone will take him. 

He's not listening when someone calls his name.


End file.
